Country reports+

The so-called country reports are commissioned by the Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support (BAAINBw) and document the research and analyses of a country‘s research landscape, especially with regard to technologies and developments with potential relevance for security and defense. For this purpose, the country-specific research actors are examined as well as their research programs and topics.

The documentation of general and specific research on this is part of the knowledge management processes. In the course of the "country reports+" activity, the tools and processes are reviewed for potential improvements and further areas of application. This includes expanding the content of what should be documented and findable for all employees. The wide range of data and information researched for the country reports makes them well suited as an experimental application example for methods, processes and technical tools.

The activity "country reports+" includes the following subgoals:

• Process documentation of data source selection and processing of country-specific key data that are relevant across countries and relate to research frameworks
• Process optimization of both the country-specific actor analysis in the area of research and development and the crosscountry documentation and evaluation
• Assessment of the added value of including patent data
• Testing of an editorial workflow for the distributed capture, editing and classification of technical vocabulary including translations in the English language
• Recording, characterization and evaluation of tools used, possible developments and alternatives
• Implementation of a prototype that supports the mentioned processes; evaluation of effort/benefit of technically and procedurally different concepts for data integration and curation; test of different visualization options

It is expected that the lessons learned and improved practices from the ongoing "country reports+" activity will make future researches and analyses in this thematic area more efficient and strengthen cross-project knowledge management.